


Can't Hold Out Forever

by Gigi_Sinclair



Category: Rock of Ages (2012), Rock of Ages - D'Arienzo
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-28
Updated: 2012-06-28
Packaged: 2017-11-08 18:35:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/446235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gigi_Sinclair/pseuds/Gigi_Sinclair
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dennis knew right from the job interview that Lonny was different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Can't Hold Out Forever

Dennis has loved--truly and deeply and sincerely loved--a total of three people in his life.

He doesn't count either of his ex-wives in that number, for obvious reasons, and he doesn't count the Bourbon Room, either. She may be a fickle bitch goddess, but the Bourbon isn't actually a person, and what Dennis feels for her goes so far beyond love he can't begin to calculate it. When it comes to real, human love, though, his number is three.

The first, Bobby, was a boy who grew up on the same street as Dennis, back in the hell of suburban post-war conformity he'd called his childhood home. As kids, they played together with their Daisy air rifles and toy soldiers. As teenagers, they spent hours together over the record player, spinning first Buddy Holly and Elvis, then the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. They never fucked or kissed or even touched, but Dennis remembers Bobby's face perfectly, his reddish hair and his Howdy Doody freckles. He remembers how he drank a whole bottle of Wild Turkey and passed out in front of a 7-Eleven the day he found out Bobby had been killed by the Viet-Cong somewhere north of Saigon. 

The second person was a girl Dennis met at Woodstock. He never knew her name, but she had long blonde hair and a gap in her teeth, and she smelled like cherries and the back seat of a VW van. They dropped acid together, watched The Who and Joplin and Hendrix arm-in-arm, and fucked like spaced-out rabbits in a tent she thought probably belonged to her, or at least to someone she knew. They stayed together the whole weekend. When Monday morning rolled around and Dennis asked for her phone number, the girl kissed him on the cheek and said, "We'll meet again when the cosmos align, David." 

So far, they haven't aligned. At this point, Dennis hopes they won't. He's not he same person he was in 1969, and he's pretty sure she's not, either. 

The third person is Lonny. Dennis knew right from the job interview that Lonny was different. He's not another clueless shit from Peoria or the British equivalent, some jumped-up jerk who thinks he can leverage a bartending job at the Bourbon into a nationwide tour and a three-record deal. Lonny believes in the Bourbon, he believes in the music. His enthusiasm and his energy make Dennis feel young again. And when Lonny looks into Dennis' eyes and flicks his hair, he makes Dennis feel something else entirely.

He's never acted on it. Lonny would never want an old geezer like him, and there's nothing more pathetic than an old man panting after some hot young thing way out of his league. Dennis sees it all the time, middle-aged guys who come into the Bourbon thinking rocker chicks are easy lays, only to leave with black eyes, scratch marks and occasionally a stiletto heel in the ass. 

Most of the time, Dennis keeps a respectable distance between himself and Lonny. Sometimes, he allows himself to slip. Whenever they book a really great band, Europe or Poison or, on one particularly thrilling occasion, Anthrax, Dennis puts his arms around Lonny, lifting him off the ground and spinning him around. And when news comes in that Lonny's favourite band, Twisted Pelican, has been jailed in Thailand for something involving a copious amount of drugs, three prostitutes and a goat, Dennis makes sympathetic noises and hugs Lonny far longer than is strictly necessary, or even polite. 

Once, when they're playing mini-golf, Dennis takes complete leave of his senses and slides up behind Lonny, pressing their bodies together and taking Lonny's hands in the guise of correcting his swing. He can't help himself. Lonny looks back at Dennis over the top of his sunglasses, smiling innocently, and Dennis feels like a total asshole. 

He loves Lonny. Dennis knows that, as surely as he knows that the Bourbon's the best rock club in LA, and probably in the universe. His love is true, clear and undeniable, but it's also a secret, kept as close to Dennis' heart as the combination to the office safe. Dennis can't imagine ever letting it out. He loves Lonny too much to risk it. 

***

Lonny loves a lot of people. His mum, his sisters. His mates back home, some of the friends he's made here. Chico, when he gets his brother Jesus to come through with a last-minute emergency shipment of beer on the condition they don't ask any questions. Twisted Pelican, the purest, most awesome rockers Lonny's ever heard, even if they were stupid enough to get banged up in Bangkok. He loves them all, and he doesn't love any of them the way he loves Dennis.

Contrary to popular belief, Lonny's not stupid. He reads, and not only the occasional hardcore porn mag he finds behind the toilets. He knows the pop psychologists that infest LA would put his attraction to Dennis down to "daddy issues." They'd tell him he wants Dennis to replace the alcoholic father who walked out when Lonny was still in nappies, and it would be complete bollocks. Lonny loves Dennis because he's so cool and so generous, because he gets what rock really means and because he's been in this business for decades and is still way more trusting than he ought to be. His looks don't hurt, either. From the moment they met at the job interview, Lonny's been head-over-heels in love with Dennis, because he's Dennis.

Dennis, of course, has no idea. Why would he? He thinks they're friends, and they are. But when Dennis picks Lonny up and swings him around, or when he presses in behind him at the mini-golf course, Lonny has to resist the urge to throw his arms around Dennis and kiss him. He does resist it. He loves Dennis too much to put him in that position. 

Or so he's always thought. When that crazy, drunken bastard Stacee Jaxx and his crooked manager make off with all the money he and Dennis worked so hard to earn, when Dennis looks at Lonny in total despair, Lonny has to do something to make that look go away. Even if it ruins their friendship, even if Lonny has to leave the Bourbon, he can't let Dennis think he's a fuck up, not for one moment. He's the furthest thing from a fuck up Lonny's ever met, and Lonny loves him enough to put it all on the line to tell him that.

***

Dennis' apartment is a complete disaster. There's a pile of Rolling Stone magazines in the kitchen sink and a litter box in the middle of the living room, even though Dennis has never owned a cat. He wonders, briefly, why he's never noticed the mess before, but then he remembers he lived at the Bourbon for the first six years he owned it, sleeping in the office and taking showers at the YMCA. Somewhere around the time Lonny showed up, Dennis realized that was a ridiculous way for a man of his age to live. 

This isn't much better, but Lonny doesn't seem to care. He lies naked on Dennis' sofa bed with the sheet crumpled up around his middle, sleeping. Dennis lies beside him and watches. It seems a little like something out of that creepy movie Lonny dragged him to see a few weeks ago, _Fatal Attraction_ , but Dennis can't help himself.

Then again, maybe Lonny wouldn't mind. He's full of surprises tonight. Dennis likes to think if he'd known about Lonny's feelings, he'd have acted on his own earlier, but he's not sure that's true. Lonny is much braver than he is. Taking that first step, making that first move, is something that Dennis would probably never have worked up the courage to do, and that would have been a tragedy. It would have meant missing out on Lonny's beautiful, bony body in Dennis' bed, on his enthusiastic embraces and on a truly amazing move involving Lonny's tongue, fingers and right knee which Dennis still can't figure out. The mere thought of it has Dennis' tired, spent body struggling valiantly to get back in the game, but it's a hopeless fight. He rolls over and closes his eyes, trying to force himself into sleep.

"Dennis." A moment later, he hears Lonny's voice. Dennis opens his eyes. "Hi." Lonny is looking at him, smiling like he's the luckiest man in the world. It's an expression that goes straight to Dennis' heart. He pulls Lonny on top of him, pushing his hands into Lonny's disarranged hair and pressing their mouths together.

Dennis has loved three people in his life, he realizes, as Lonny groans and slips his tongue between Dennis' lips. But there's no one like Lonny.


End file.
